If you're ever driving down the road at nightwith clouds up above and the lake to your right,don't take a moment and stop to marvel,​no matter how brightly it sparkles.Because below the surface of that glassy facelay creatures silently waiting to replacea clueless human such as yourselfwith one of them. Those tricky elves!If they succeed, no one will know that you​are in the Unseelie court making your debut,while a changeling begins their masquerade.Their won't notice the others, as they're dragged off to the gladeor how the children mumble louder now in their beds.The takeover will be subtle, and all of you will be dead.

Oh, did I say you?Why silly me, I've mispoken so.If you'll excuse meI must return to my burrow-umm, my home now.But remember, be careful​for you do not know what may be lurkingalong those curving roads.

Into the boiling pot, another goessparking and hissingsmelling of sweetened copper.The squeamish would cower if they sawthe pieces of flesh and vegetation alikethat I add to my bubbling stew.But they are not for whom I make my potions, no.If anything, they are fated to become ingredients themselves,shrieking as I carve themand piece by piece I toss theminto my cauldron.They are right to fear the me,for I see their measly little livesand laugh.When you have lived for millennia,few mortal matters matter anymore.

If you go,yes you'll dance through starlightand taste dewdrops,but their cursed mounds will hold and hide you.And no matter how perfect a paradise it seems to be,it's still a prison,​a world where you are incompatible.And one daywhen they've grown tired of you,they will toss you outbroken upon the dirtand laughing,​drowning in the rain.

None have survived their touch,so whether they burn with hellish flameor with a chill that devours flesh,I cannot say.But the corpses they leave behind are torn assunderwith eternal screams echoing through their lips.

​They come and go as they pleasewithout pattern or predictions.We are at their mercy.Only divine mercyand sheer dumb luckhave kept us alive so far.

We wish you the same.Pray to your gods as you rest this night.Pray that the cursed ones​do not find you helpless.

We glide across an ocean of darknessmy oddities and me.We're a menagerie of colorsrescued from unappreciative worldsand arranged and celebrated as the marvels we are.

​Admission is freeI won't charge you for a glanceor even a day of observation.Each time you look,you spot something new.

Some of my friends are a little shybut if you're patient enoughthey might let you catch a glimpse.

Be warned,if you look too longyou might find yourself within our ranks.If you do,I can't tell you what will happen.If it's a future you,well I'll see you later!If it's your past,then it's been to long, old friend!

The magic crept from her fingertips,sizzling green smoke that chewedthrough stone and wood.

It wasn't that she didn't hear the peasants screaming,crying out for help and healing.Even the dead could hear that racket.

No, she simply had other plans.Machinations that would serve her desires first and foremost.

The town around her was burning.Flames leapt from rooftops to gardens and back.It made for very dramatic lighting.perfect, in fact.

And with the superficial carnageno one would pay an old wench any attention.Not when any sane creature would be fleeingrather than walking through the town square,the bouquet in her hand dried and rotten.

It was a simple charmto turn the weapon of her own death​the very noose and gallows meant to end herinto the creature that would tear apart the countryside.